How Should We Respond to Conflict in Israel?

Posted on Jan 18, 2018 Topic : Prophecy
Posted by : Ron Rhodes

Temporary peace has, on occasion, been achieved in the Middle East, such as that which resulted from the Oslo Accords in 1993. However, unresolved issues—invariably related to the city of Jerusalem—have always led to the reemergence of conflict.

A substantial peace came with the Camp David Accords, signed in 1978, in which Jimmy Carter brought Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin together at Camp David. This meeting led to an Israeli agreement to withdraw from the Sinai in exchange for Egypt normalizing relations between the countries. While the Accords led to a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, they did not result in peace between Israel and other Arab states.

American presidents since Carter have consistently sought to initiate peace, but no lasting progress has resulted. To make matters worse, the vacuum created by the recent withdrawal of US troops from the Middle East arguably led to the emergence of ISIS, a supremely radical group that has escalated the conflict to ever-new heights.

My personal assessment is that the situation in the Middle East will continue to escalate from bad to worse. Prophetic Scripture assures us that Israel will increasingly be a sore spot in the world in the end times. In Zechariah 12:2 we read, “Behold, I am about to make Jerusalem a cup of staggering to all the surrounding peoples” (ESV). The “surrounding peoples” of Israel are Islamic, and they are strongly motivated to see Israel destroyed.

No one can deny that Israel is in trouble today.

Biblical prophecy is clear that there will not be lasting peace for Israel or the Middle East (or for the world, for that matter) until the Lord Jesus returns at the second coming. The current president of the US, for example, may seek to bring about a lasting peace in the Middle East, but like all others, he will fail at this task. Only the Lord Jesus will succeed.

Please do not get me wrong. We should still seek to do all we can to bring peace to the region and stop the bloodshed. Peace is always God’s ideal (Isaiah 19:23-25), and the apostle Paul called God “the God of peace” (Romans 15:33). Jesus is the “Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6), and He affirmed, “Blessed are the peacemakers” (Matthew 5:9 NIV).

A realistic assessment of Middle East affairs, however, lends credence to the biblical prophecies which reveal that such peace will ultimately be found only at the return of Jesus Christ.

Certainly we can look forward to the day prophesied in Scripture when we will experience universal peace (Isaiah 2:4; see also Isaiah 11:1-9; Hosea 2:18; Zechariah 9:9-10). Meanwhile, the apostle Paul encouraged Christians to pray “for kings and all who are in authority so that we can live peaceful and quiet lives marked by godliness and dignity” (1 Timothy 2:2 NLT). We should pray specifically that God give our leaders supernatural wisdom that will enable them to make the correct decisions with regard to foreign policy.